There is nowhere left to go, now
by LTGWS
Summary: Take place in current time (season 3, between episodes 8 and 9). This is what I think needs to happen next. Cameron is getting ready to move to Tokyo, but then she helps Joe, and now Ryan is gone. Joe is clearly blaming himself. Cameron looks into her closet and sees that its empty, and that emptiness feels like a mirror to her. But instead of running to Tom, she runs to Joe.


Cameron was at the store getting things for her and Tom to move to Tokyo with, or at least that's what she thought she was doing. Joe was at the beach trying to escape his apartment, the place of Ryan's death. The death had shook them both up, they may have been the only people who really knew him at all. Joe, especially, because this may be all his fault. But didn't Cameron hand him over?

Cameron gets out of her car, grocery bag in hand, and slowly opens the door to Joe's apartment. Joe is standing on his balcony against the railing, looking down with an empty look in his eyes. He is still wearing the heavy clothes he wore at the beach, but Cameron is not wearing her wedding ring. When he turns around to meet the noise of the opening door, this is the first thing he notices. Maybe this is the first thing he looks for because Cameron is the only logical place to go when something like this happens, because she is the only place he has ever been. He knows that she destroyed him, that she threw his secrets back in his face, but none of that matters; because he knows he destroyed her, too. Looking at her now, he knows that all of that has been long since forgiven.

They are gravitating towards each other. Before Joe knows it, he is slowly turning away from the balcony, turning away from the edge. Cameron was nervous about coming here, nervous that he might too have jumped to the concrete below. Upon seeing him standing against the railing looking down she feels relieved that he has not taken the final step, but she can feel that he has been thinking it. The air in this room is dark and heavy despite the large glass windows and open doors letting the breeze in. Something tells her that it will never be light and fresh in here again, because Joe will carry around the darkness and guilt of Ryan's jump forever.

"Cameron."

"Joe," Cameron says. "I'm sorry, I didn't know if I should come, I just um, I wanted to see if you were okay."

Joe grabs her left hand in his and lets it fall to his side, after looking at it for a second.

"You're not wearing your wedding ring anymore."

Cameron clears her throat and says, "No, no I'm not."

They stand there like that for a second, Cameron's eyes dart to the glass living room table and she sees the folded up blankets, and she knows they must have been Ryan's. She is reminded why she came here in the first place. Would she have come here if circumstances were different? Maybe she would have moved to Tokyo with Tom, but she would instantly panic once she got there, everything would crash down around her. Would she end up back here, back with whom she started?

Joe sees that her eyes have landed on Ryan's blankets, and he too is reminded of the true reason for her visit. He suddenly feels very cold and still. Cameron notices that he has frozen staring at the blankets.

"I did this. I did this to Ryan. He jumped, but I may as well have pushed him. I destroy everything. I'll destroy you, too, like I have in the past." Joe drops her hand. "You should go."

Joe walks over to the balcony and grabs the cold railing so hard that his knuckles turn white. The crisp wind making his face feel cold and his throat close up. He is reeling from the thought that Cameron was finally here, and he told her to leave, and now he must be alone again. Silent tears begin rolling down his face. It is in this moment that he realizes he has become his mother. He led Ryan to the top of the building during the storm, he showed him the euphoric possibilities of climbing higher; and then, last night, he told him to sleep on the couch, he let Ryan fall off the roof. Only Ryan won't spend two years recovering in a hospital, Ryan is dead. Joe finally understands why his mother disappeared, and realizes that maybe he should, too.

Joe feels a small but firm hand grab his upper arms, and he knows that it must be Cameron. His first instinct is to turn toward the gentle gesture, but then he realizes it is not meant to be gentle. She whips him around to face her and he quickly notices the anger on her face and the tears that have welled up in her eyes. She begins to yell, furious.

"No Joe, no! You do NOT get to do this. You came to my door today, asked me for help, and I helped you and now Ryan is dead and you're thinking about jumping off that balcony and I'm running away from a husband who is moving to Tokyo who I never should have married in the first place!" She yelled, shaking.

Those words hit Joe like a slap in the face, and he realized how selfish he was being. It was so easy for him to discount the feelings of others when he was in distress, he retreated so far back into the depths of his head that it was difficult to see anything in front of him. This time especially, when the only place he was looking was down.

Cameron pushed against his chest with both hands and shoved him backward, his back crashing into the railing.

"Joe, you cannot do this! You cannot do this okay! I am here, I am here and you are not going to tell me to leave!"

Joe took a few steps toward her and wrapped his strong arms around her, and she struggled to get away. She was bawling now and he knew that tears were still welled up his eyes, but he also knew the difference between past and present, and Cameron was in the present.

"Cameron, Cameron, stop! Stop fighting me, just this once, stop being stubborn!"

She was struggling less but crying more, her face in the crook of his neck, tasting the saltiness of her own tears in her mouth.

"Joe, what are you doing! You just told me to leave, and then you turn around and are pleading with me to stay? I'm not going to stay, Joe! I'm done giving up little pieces of myself every time someone waltzes into my life. I have nothing left. I have no job, Mutinty is gone, I left Tom, I have nothing!"

"Cameron, look at my apartment! I don't have anything either, and I never have! I'm a cold, self serving bastard who destroys everyone and everything he comes in contact with. You're the only person on this earth who knows anything substantial about me, and I know you know this. I'm falling apart, Cameron. This is my fault. I did to Ryan what my mother did to me. How could I drag you into this Cameron, how could I do that!"

Cameron froze. His mother? She relaxed in his arms, causing Joe to loosen his grip. She backed away with a wild look in her eyes.

"Okay, Joe, stop. You are not your mother. You will never be your mother. This is not your fault. You didn't do this to him, Joe."

"Yes, I did Cameron. He came over last night and he said that he wanted to work with me once this was all over, he said that this was a classic Joe Macmillan move and I had to tell him it wasn't possible, I had to tell him that I couldn't work with Joe Macmillan anymore, and I could see in his face that it killed him. I laid out his two options. I told him, I told him that if he ran, I would give him fifty grand and drive him to the bus station so that he could disappear. He didn't like that, so option two would be to turn himself in and do the year or two, and not touch a computer for five. I think he came to me looking for a way out, Cameron, and I couldn't give it to him. I did exactly what you said I do. I lured him in with my charm and my speeches, but I couldn't actually give him what he wanted. I let him down. Then I told him to sleep here, that he needed some rest, and I went to bed. He wrote that note in this living room Cameron, on that couch, while I was asleep. Then he jumped off my balcony, and I couldn't stop him. He came to me for help and ended up empty and hopeless. This is what I do to people. I've done it to you in the past, how could I do it to you again?"

"Joe, okay, I am a big girl. I know you've always seen me as some naive child, but I can take care of myself better than anyone else around here. I make these decisions for myself, you don't make them for me. And you didn't do this. I said to you before that nobody can make Ryan do anything, and I meant that. If he did this, then he was always going to do it. Even if he didn't sleep here last night, maybe he would have jumped off a bridge or crashed a car, but he would have done something. That note he left, Joe, nothing in it was about you. Ryan saw the world as a place he couldn't escape, a place he could never get ahead in. He was like that at Mutiny, too. He always had big ideas but never at the right time or for the right things. When he came to you, Joe, you gave him a momentary escape from the hell he saw this world as. If anything you helped him, made him wait longer to do this. You gave him hope, Joe, you didn't take it away from him. Ryan might have done this six months ago if he hadn't met you. What isn't fair is that he sucked you in. You became friends and now you're hurting and destroying yourself over something that would have happened with or without you. I'm not a kid, Joe, and you don't get to tell me to leave. I'm staying."

Joe lifted his head slowly and fixed his eyes on her. Her strong, determined, green eyes. This is the way he looked at her in her bedroom that night he told her about his scars, he way he looked when he was ashamed after saying the truth out loud and she stroked his face and she kissed him. Except this time instead of saying 'Cameron, this is really good' he says

"Cameron, okay. Okay." and she seems satisfied.

Cameron let out a breath that she didn't even know she was holding.


End file.
